An Introvert With An Extrovert Button!

Reading Monday: I Gave It Up A Book and Went to the Beach

The Marriage of Opposites

I decided to give up on a book this week: The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman. I believe I have talked about the difficult decision to give up on a book. Typically I have enjoyed Hoffman’s magical realism, but this one was just not working for me. It seems her more religious books, especially those that relate to Judaism aren’t my cup of tea.

I wanted to like this book. I got it at Book Expo 2015 and my copy is autographed, but I have been trying to get through it for months without any success. This week, rather than wait again for another go at the ebook, I decided to just stop.

I suspect this will be the last time I read a Hoffman book that relates to Judaism and magical realism.

Instead, I finished The Girl on the Train for my real life book club meeting this weekend. We have been trying to change things around this past year. We have a core 6-7 members who are such fun ladies, but we often get distracted from talking about the book. One thing we tried this year was alternating specific books with monthly themes. This was a theme month and out theme was beach reads. With it being July, we were invited to a member’s family beach house on the North Shore’s Plum Island.

For those who don’t know Massachusetts, the North Shore are the towns on the coast north of Boston, of which the most famous is Salem. Plum Island is connected to my town of Lowell because the Merrimack River, which flows through Lowell, ends at Plum Island. Any beach north of Cape Cod is typically freezing. There is no gulf stream above Cape Cod to warm the water. You typically spend very little beach time in the water.

So, we got up early on Sunday and drove out to the beach. The car ride was full of discussion about our funny internal dramatics and our own lives. Once on the island, we ate a little and talked about the book before heading down to the beach.

We all ready different books, but I picked The Girl On the Train because I was in the mood for a suspenseful mystery. It was a perfect pick. Bonus, we had a clear and hot beach day with water that was warmer than usual. I got some much needed sun and had a great afternoon that may hopefully become a tradition.